A game is any activity undertaken or regarded as a contest involving luck, skill, or a combination of both, and played according to a set of rules for the enjoyment of the players or spectators.
Games are planned experiences for players. Some games provide significant intellectual challenge and the opportunity to plan and carry out a myriad of strategies. Other games provide players with emotional experiences like tension, fun, or even fear.
Games have provided humans the opportunity to engage in mental challenges, social interaction, recreation, and competition for thousands of years. Many new games are introduced each year, but few are successful enough to merit production in subsequent years. You, however, will create a classic bound to be played for all eternity.
What is a “strategy game?”
Your game will rely on strategy, not luck in determining the course of the game. This means that players’ decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome of the game. Luck-based elements can be unfair if overly used—one player might roll a string of high numbers and another player may roll a series of low numbers, so victory may not be based on how good the players were. If players have the ability to choose the actions they want to take, then victory results from those better decisions and skilled players have a much better experience.
These decision-making skills do not occur by accident; game designers create games to generate specific actions, behaviors, and outcomes. Good games allow players to have multiple choices per turn whose comparative value may be known or unknown. Good games may allow several different pathways to victory so that different strategies can be formulated by players at the outset of the game, or change as the game’s state changes. Good games give all players a sense they are competitive for the entirety of the game, so games with player elimination are not ideal.
What are the main elements of a strategy game?
In this class, we design light to medium euro-style designer games. This means that games are highly thematic with gameplay that emphasizes player decision-making with multiple paths to victory and multiple choices per turn. Successful games match players' expectations to the choices made by the designer. Here's how I explain each part to my students.
Many games incorporate a theme, which is the utilization of a particular subject or scenario world in which to immerse players. Almost anything can be used as a game’s theme: being a landlord (Monopoly), fighting monsters to protect a castle (Castle Panic), mice hunting for cheese in a castle (Burg Appenzell), monkeys in bumper cars (Spin Monkeys). As a game designer, choosing a fun theme that you really enjoy is important for your enjoyment of this process. A great theme, fully fleshed out, can attract and keep players as well, because a game where players move wooden cubes around on a board based on cards isn’t exciting, but working together to eradicate disease is really tense and exciting, and both are the game Pandemic. No one wants to be on a sinking island, trying to escape via shark, whale, and sea monster-infested waters, but it’s fun to pretend in the game Survive! Escape from Atlantis.
A great theme can also put players in the right frame of mind to make better, more informed decisions because they can use existing knowledge about a subject to help them. In these games, outcomes reflect real-world consequences of a player’s decisions. In Risk, when you lose an army, you lose actual army pieces. Not all games are reality-based, but themes help provide a context for the rules to help players remember them better. In Rampage, players use their monster pawns to smash buildings, throw buildings, blow monster breath, and move about the board. Luckily, we don’t have to experience monsters destroying cities in real life, but because the theme is fun and engaging, we remember the simple rules because they fit what we know from monster movies and stories.
Abstract games are the alternative to themed games. Abstract games do not have a story or simulate reality, and examples include Chess, Go, and Checkers. In abstract strategy games, players must think about the problem logically as the rules describe in a straightforward manner.
Themes must lend themselves to conflict: the source of competition in the game where players compete over limited options, choices, and resources. The game must represent conflict itself—escaping a labyrinth with treasures (The Amazeing Labyrinth) or successfully piloting a hot air balloon (Cloud 9). In addition, each game should offer small-scale conflict on each turn because of the choices they make—where to place a tile, should I place a worker or not, should I try to steal a city from another player in my future actions (Carcassonne)?
The Objectives are the stated ways players can win. The objectives must fit the theme and conflict—if the game is about penguins eating fish, then the objective should be to have the penguisn who caught the most fish by the end of the game (Hey, That’s My Fish!) Games can end in a variety of ways from achieving a stated level of points to number of rounds to other triggering events. Achieving an objective for yourself or delaying another player’s achievement determines the overall purpose of the game.
Mechanics are the specific ways that players physically play the game. There are over 30 commonly used mechanics like Roll and Move, Action Point Allowance, Set Collection, and Pattern Recognition, but there are many new and innovative mechanics that game developers have created. In Niagara, clear plastic disks move based on player decisions simulating a river’s movement. Game manufacturers are always looking for unusual and new mechanics in game prototypes.
The End Game Condition is the particular event, condition, or combination that players work towards and ultimately achieves to end the game. Some games end after a fixed number of rounds, where others are a race to the end. Some end based on points accumulated or spent, while others are based on accumulation of money or territory. Other games have players solve a puzzle, eliminate all other players, or comprise some combination of these listed. Victory Conditions are the combination of Objective and End Game Condition; it is important to note that in strategy games, ending a game first does not always make you the winner.
The prototype is the physical product that represents your ideas—the board and bits. Every aspect of the prototype should reflect the game’s theme and should easily facilitate the mechanics. If the pawns are representing pirate ships, the pawns should look like pirate ships. In addition, the pirate ships should fit neatly onto the spaces. The artwork should reflect the theme and the layout should be clearly organized. How you define the game space—number of regions, hexes, or squares, the different types of spaces available, how those spaces are used—has a significant impact on the game, especially as it evolves, and good designers make thoughtful choices to the game space and player components.
Rules are the most important document of the game. Rules enable (or prevent) players from playing the game—in fact, some claim that rules ARE the game, that games don’t exist without rules. Successful rules clearly and concisely communicate to players what they need to know and what they need to do in order for them to play the game as you expect it to be played. For players to have a satisfying experience, the rules must be complete and user-friendly. Most rulebooks go through many, many revisions.
How Are Strategy Games Different from Luck-Based Games?
In general, a strategy game has all of the following elements in varying degree:
- Players succeed (or lose) based on strategic decisions, not luck.
- Players have equal knowledge to play; no trivia.
- Play is based on multiple decisions a person could make on each turn with possible advantages and disadvantages each time.
- Players can plan strategies that will take multiple turns to complete fully.
- Players can replay the game many times and have a different experience each time.
- Winning (and losing) is specific and achievable
